wo races are
separating more than ever before. The strongest point in the new code
seems to be that any white man is boycotted and despised if he
"associates with negroes" (sec. 114, at the end). Some are anxious to
interfere and try to control. They take their stand on ethical views of
what is going on. It is evidently impossible for any one to interfere.
We are like spectators at a great natural convulsion. The results will
be such as the facts and forces call for. We cannot foresee them. They
do not depend on ethical views any more than the volcanic eruption on
Martinique contained an ethical element. All the faiths, hopes,
energies, and sacrifices of both whites and blacks are components in the
new construction of folkways by which the two races will learn how to
live together. As we go along with the constructive process it is very
plain that what once was, or what any one thinks ought to be, but
slightly affects what, at any moment, is. The mores which once were are
a memory. Those which any one thinks ought to be are a dream. The only
thing with which we can deal are those which are.

+82. The mores are unrecorded.+ A society is never conscious of its
mores until it comes in contact with some other society which has
different mores, or until, in higher civilization, it gets information
by literature. The latter operation, however, affects only the literary
classes, not the masses, and society never consciously sets about the
task of making mores. In the early stages mores are elastic and plastic;
later they become rigid and fixed. They seem to grow up, gain strength,
become corrupt, decline, and die, as if they were organisms. The phases
seem to follow each other by an inherent necessity, and as if
independent of the reason and will of the men affected, but the changes
are always produced by a strain towards better adjustment of the mores
to conditions and interests of the society, or of the controlling
elements in it. A society does not record its mores in its annals,
because they are to it unnoticed and unconscious. When we try to learn
the mores of any age or people we have to seek our information in
incidental references, allusions, observations of travelers, etc.
Generally works of fiction, drama, etc., give us more information about
the mores than historical records. It is very difficult to construct
from the Old Testament a description of the mores of the Jews before the
captivity. It is also very difficul